2015.09.30 - The Demi-God and the Demon
The mall is slow today, it's a weekday, and its getting near to closing. Perhaps an hour before closing. Eight in the evening. A tall blonde teenager, Darius, got back from San Francisco an hour ago and has been looking for better shoes for running all the way between the two. He keeps damaging the shoes to the point that they're practically falling apart, by running so fast in them. Eventually, he'll figure out that he should just run barefoot, but he hasn't gotten to that point yet. Lifting several shoes, he is looking at their construction as he goes. Looking at practically every type there. And so it is that Anyanka, Avenger of Scorned Women, finds herself at the Beacon Hills Mall. Dressed in a cute, girly outfit, her face looks normal enough at the moment, as she wanders through the same store Darius is in, talking with one of the shop clerks, who's currently pouring out her heart to Anya, the 'newest clerk'. That's what she's posing as, to get her Wish Quota for the week, anyway. "It would seem to me that this Andrew boy was not deserving of your ample affections, and that you should seek love elsewhere." "Yeah, but I /loved/ him!" The girl wails suddenly, burying her face against Anya's shoulder, all tears and snot and running mascara. First stop after this? Dry cleaner's. In the meantime, Anya awkwardly pats the girl's shoulder. "He should not have cheated on you. Do you just wish all men would die horribly?" Carrying over a pair of heavy duty biker boots, Darius sets them on the counter and looks at the woman and the crying girl. His bright blue eyes drifting from one to the next and then back again. Not wanting to put the distressed woman into some sort of fit, he doesn't say anything at first, just waits to see if there is some sort of natural opening to act like a customer. The nature of the thing here, this whole, public distress, is not something he, or in fact most people, are good at listening to without looking entirely distressed himself. There is no way to just insert himself without being awkward. So he accepts the awkwardness. "If this is a bad time, I can come back later, or something," he tells them both. "N-no! That'd be terrible!" The girl whimpers, pulling back to look at Anya, her face shocked. "I mean... my /dad/ is a man..." She sniffles, then looks over to Darius, wiping the back of her nose. "Of course this is a bad time, we're almost closed anyway! I wish customers like you would just... get what was coming to them!" ... Well, it's not nearly what she was going for, but... Anya shrugs. "Done." And then her face is looking all... scarred and Bride of Kreuger, a sword in her hand. "You heard the lady, right? It totally counts as a wish!" And just like that, she's leaping onto the counter, grinning, her face back to normal. "It really is nothing personal, I just have a quota to meet." The woman freaking out and her little diatribe just earns an eyeroll from Darius. He has been around plenty of people who are angry at the world, and this woman is clearly one of them. He is actually inclined to leave her to her moping when the whole exchange and Anya's outburst catches him mildly off-guard. He almost immediately takes a step back and narrows his eyes, trying to figure out what it is. So that he can kill it. It's some sort of demon, he guesses, but its explanation about quotas also has him trying to figure that part out as well. "Well, I'm not sure being attacked with a sword really qualifies as 'what customers have coming to them,' in any sense," he reasons as he backpedals and then reaching down, picks up an entire floor-display clearance rack of sundresses and throws it. All of it, right at her. The display goes flying, easily enough... And Anya goes down beneath it, struggling up after a moment, sword tangled in garments... which she tries to remove without cutting them. "I... just rearranged that rack, mortal! It took forty five minutes!" She's over the counter again... or what's left of it, anyway. The girl, for her part, has screamed and fled the shop, sobbing hysterically. Anya stalks toward Darius, sword gleaming dangerously. "Customers always deserve impaling! Especially when it is not my establishment in which they spend their currency!" And then she's swinging the sword with deadly accuracy, apparently unphased by having a rack of clothes just slam into her. "Always? Aren't you ever a customer?" Darius questions that logic as he casually dances away from her blade. He seems to move with an effortless inhuman grace as he fights her, as if he has read a textbook on how her moves will go, and even seems to smile a bit as he does it. The fact that his reflexes seem to be equally as inhuman as his skill doesn't help her gain ground. As he walks through the Macy's, he continues to throw things at her. Pottery now. A vase. A stack of plates. Turning away from her, he picks up a rather sturdy iron fire-poker. Then he raises it up in front of him, smiles a bit devilishly, and starts fencing back at her. "My name is Darius by the way." As the plates and the vase come flying at her, Anya catches them telekinetically, placing them firmly upon the ground, rather than launching them back. "I just organized this department. Can we go to the sporting goods section or something? I do not wish to damage a department I will be responsible for cleaning up at the end of my shift!" She begins moving faster, testing Darius more fully with the sword now. "Honestly, it would be so much simpler if you stood still and let me impale you. You are not a Slayer, you are not a Demon. And while you do have muscular arms, I am almost certainly stronger than you." She lashes out with her left leg, lighting quick, trying to knock the weapon out of Darius' hand. A laugh. Enjoying himself, Darius casually continues to fence with her. He stops backpedalling and stares at her, before snickering loudly. "We go where I want, and I just introduced myself, demon, the least you can do is give me a nickname to call you by. I'd call you, 'Freddy' but it just seems so unoriginal," he admits, feeling a bit lackluster on that one. The kick at his hand meets his shin which has somehow interposed itself, and it's a bit like kicking the corner of a brick building. Solid and not the least bit perturbed. He lowers his leg then and starts to walk away from her, turning his side to her so that he can continue to parry, but not strike back, save very careless little prods and taps with the tip of the thing. Enjoying the sparring. That's how this feels. She's so absurd in her behavior that he can't see her any other way. Walking into the sporting goods department, he smiles at her. As he walks, through the department, he glances around for something to bind her with. He could hit her with a treadmill a few times, that might take the fight out of her. Luckily for her, Anya's a /lot/ stronger and tougher than she looks. "I am Anyanka, Avenger of Scorned Women!" She twirls her sword with a surprising display of skill. As soon as they're out of 'her' departments, however... Anya lunges, attempting to impale Darius with all her strength, while at the same time, telekinetically lifting one of the weight benches behind him and flinging it in his direction. Where she was a moment ago? Gone. Now she's leaning against that very treadmill to watch Darius' response to this newest form of attack. The trick with the telekinesis and the teleporting actually make it a bit of a challenge! Jumping back from the attack, there isn't even a pause. The fact that the weight bench isn't a weapon means that Darius doesn't even feel it coming, but it hits and simply bounces off of him. He barely even wavers. "So you do have some skills," he remarks and looks over toward her. Sparing a brief glance at the dented bench. "Pleasure to meet you Anyanka, but that woman wasn't scorned by me. Why aren't you at a women's shelter, finding women who were actually abused? Or a rape support group?" he asks, lifting an eyebrow. Taking a step around the treadmill from her, he looks at her with a smile. "I'd rather not hurt you, but I can." "They tend to wish for more gruesome fates, and frankly? I'm tired of penetrating men with their own phalli this week. Abused women aren't very creative. She was /supposed/ to wish her boyfriend would die horribly or his penis be covered in warts, but you just had to interrupt right when I had her on the verge of wishing for something major." She keeps the treadmill between them, smiling sweetly. "Oh, I am very sure you could temporarily harm me. But... I am immortal. Are you?" She tilts her head to one side, waiting patiently for Darius' answer. And then the sprinkler system is triggered, telekinetically, and the fire alarm sounds. "We have approximately five minutes until the police and the fire department arrive." Eyeroll. "So your boredom translates to bystanders getting the business end of a longsword? Anyanka, that's bad avenging, your job is the scorned, not the idly unhappy," Darius chastises, since it's in his nature to be helpful, and nice. He enjoys the fight, but she's not giving him much space to be pleasant. "I don't seem very daunted by the fact that you're a demon, do I? What do you think I am?" he asks and glances up as the fire-alarm starts to sound, and then the sprinkler system starts to soak the store, and then probably the mall as well. He sighs. "They do not concern me," he concludes and slips his foot underneath the treadmill and launches it at her, full strength. From essentially no distance at all. The treadmill goes flying into the air, spinning once, before it slams down on Anya, pinning her to the ground. Or it would have, if she hadn't teleported behind Darius, sword poised to strike. "Well, she WAS scorned. It just so happens you were not the one who scorned her. Her boyfriend cheated on her. With a buxom bimbo named Becky, no less!" So... beating him up isn't working. "Alright, a truce. Clearly, the wish is not working. If it were, we would be on more even footing and you'd have a sword through your spine." She screws up her mouth thoughtfully, glancing back toward her department. "I think I will need to seek gainful employment elsewhere." The sword disappears, and Anya shrugs. "Do you still want those boots?" The fact is, the movement of the sword makes it child's play for Darius to track Anya when she teleports. Nobody would know that, but he doesn't even need to see her, to know where she goes, he turns around as smoothly as can be imagined and looks her square in the eyes. "The boots? They're soaked and damaged now, I'd want them for a discount," Darius replies and turns toward her, looking her up and down as her clothing gets soaked. Teenager brain in action. He smiles then and tosses the firepoker aside as he starts walking back up toward the front of the store. Putting his hands into his pockets. Looking back at her as he walks toward the front of the store, he wonders if she's going to walk up to the front again. Her clothes are soaked, and she does have a pleasant physique. She's also old enough to be Darius's grandmother, possibly even on his father's side. "... I am not authorized to give a discount of more than fifteen percent." She says, after a moment's thought. It IS only fair to give him a discount, since she can't decapitate him, right? "You destroyed a clothing rack in the battle, too. I believe the purchase of the boots at a fifteen percent discount to be more than fair." "Fifteen percent off for boots filled with water? I'll pass," Darius replies and goes back to looking at the boots ahead on the counter. As he sizes them up again, he dumps them both out and considers them at length, as if he might change his mind. Typical customer behavior. "Out of curiosity, do you have some sort of memory altering trick? Won't that woman remember your face? Don't your sorts generally avoid that sort of thing? The whole, being seen by the normal folk?" he asks. "What?" Darius questions when she says that about humans in response to his question about memory and seeing her as a demon. He doesn't push it though, as he suddenly understands that she has some strange thinking. That much is just becoming patently obvious. "Nah, not worth it. I can't teleport though, so I need to be going now. Nice meeting you, Anyanka," he decides and gives her a little smile before turning and walking back out of the Macy's. Hands going into his pockets as he walks through the pouring of the sprinklers, and from there, out into the sleety-rain that has been falling for a large chunk of the day. "If you do not wish to complete the transaction, then get out, and have a wonderful day!" Anya announces, in her most cheerful Customer Service voice. Glancing around at the damage, she sighs. "I am not giving my two week notice, this time." She tells the cash register, hugging the drawer. She then walks over to the gate and pulls it shut behind Darius, waving cheerfully should he look back, closing and locking it. She sets her keys on the mangled keyboard, grabs the till, and... is gone.